


Nuts and Bolts

by just_lilo



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Flashbacks, Pre-Canon, Smut, Teenage Drama
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:01:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28893327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/just_lilo/pseuds/just_lilo
Summary: "Humans are like shells. Not the ones animals wear. The explosive kind."Bakuda takes Weld captive. They both find they're not as invulnerable as they thought.
Relationships: Bakuda/Weld, Weld/Original Character
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	1. Breaking Ground

Weld had always liked volcanoes, at least so long as he could remember. There was a draw to them that was hard to deny. Volcanoes, see, had all the strength and beauty of any other mountain, but contained within was an unnatural devastating amount of force, fire and raw power. He was sure there was a metaphor there to be uncovered — something about living life as a walking, talking fountain of disturbance and power.

He could figure out the poetry to it all later. In the meantime, he had bigger problems than that. Like the fact that he was currently _stuck_ in one of the damn things.

“Try not to think of it as a cell,” the woman in the gas mask said. Her voice was artificial and flat due to some sort of voice modulator, but she still managed to sound haughty. “Really, it’s more like a work of fucking art. How often is it that a tinker makes something that’s gorgeous and functional? Once in a goddamn blue moon, at best.”

Behind Weld, a series of vents continued to churn out a constant stream of scintillatingly hot fluid. The molten metal oozed across Weld’s body, catching on his metal flesh for only a few seconds before dripping through vents to be recycled. No matter how hard he strained, Weld couldn’t control the liquid metal, couldn’t even keep it in his body. It didn’t hurt, but it felt _uncomfortable_ , and it prevented him from pulling himself back together into a solid figure.

“And let me tell you, this particular masterpiece was a bitch and a half to put together,” Bakuda continued. “I mean, do you know what a pain in the ass it was to find a metal-generating cape who’d work with me? I can’t just get that shit from Kaiser, you know. I had to do things the _hard_ way.”

She rapped a knuckle on the glass wall of Weld’s cell. Weld, still unable to move a muscle, resigned himself to glaring back at her. 

Bakuda just let out a staticky cackle. “Found a kid in New York who finally did it for me. Had to scare him into it, of course, but what is it they say? Fear of mindblowing torment and the murder of your whole family makes the world go ‘round?”

“Actually, it’s ‘money’,” Weld replied through gritted teeth.

“Toe-may-toe, toe-mah-toe,” Bakuda shrugged.

She turned her back on Weld, pacing down the length of the lab. And it _was_ a lab. Somehow, since the last report of Bakuda’s rampage in NYC and the first sighting of her in Boston, the villainess had procured weapons, tools, and boxes upon boxes of _bombs_.

Everything was contained in her spotless laboratory, tucked away in a cramped apartment. Weld’s cell had been constructed in the living room. His back was to the kitchenette, while he faced Bakuda’s armory.

This woman was dangerous, competent, and crazy. On a good day, Weld would be wary going up against someone with any _two_ of those traits. This was already not looking like a good day.

Bakuda strode back to Weld, hips swaying. Each slinking step was measured for effect, and her poise smoldered with confidence. Her costume didn’t just hug her body, it was _poured_ over her, all tight black fabric and tighter, blacker straps.

The two of them made quite a pair: the hero, immobile and submerged in dripping metal, and the villainess, prowling around him in her nearly-liquid catsuit.

The grenades at Bakuda’s belt told a different story, though. This was serious business.

Bakuda turned away from him yet again. Her hair, twisted into a sloppy knot at the top of her head, swished behind her as she left. Weld let out a breath he hadn’t realized he could hold.

“Don’t go anywhere! Momma’s going to be working, and she mustn’t be disturbed under _any_ circumstances,” Bakuda called out over her shoulder. She wiggled her gloved fingers in a mocking wave. 

“The Protectorate is going to find you!” Weld couldn’t resist shouting after her. Hours’ worth of pent-up rage seeped into his voice, the first cracks in his stoic front. He continued in a low growl. “Whatever you’re doing in _my_ town, it wasn’t worth it. We’ve got the best capes in Boston hunting you down, Bakuda. And when they catch you, you’re going to regret what you’ve done.”

The tinker stopped in the doorway to the bedroom. She didn’t turn around, or reach for a weapon. Her fingers crept up to the back of her head. There was an audible click and a hiss of air as she fiddled with her mask. 

Then she spoke. Her voice wasn’t warped by the mask anymore. In its absence, she sounded fiercely human.

“You should be grateful I only turned you half liquid,” Bakuda hissed. Weld couldn’t see her expression, but her voice and her posture brimmed with seething rage. “For your information, the chamber you’re in is booby-trapped. _Obviously_. I kept it simple, just an incendiary device in that cute, hm, disco ball above your head. Try and break out, and your ass is gas. You’ll be vaporized before you can even start to beg for mercy.”

Her heavy-laden belt dropped to the floor with a thump. Weld forced himself not to flinch at the impact.

“Don’t fuck with me.”

With Bakuda gone, Weld was left with his thoughts. How had he ended up here? He certainly hadn’t started the day intending to be a prisoner by afternoon. Far from it. 

They’d received the tip at just past midnight.

Weld and Slant were the only Wards around for the briefing. Armstrong had been very thorough, as was his usual manner. There was a villainess at large in the city who had just fled south from New York. She was currently rated a Tinker 8, extremely violent, and not to be approached at any cost. Her specialty, as far as they could tell, was in producing _bombs_.

The Wards had received clear orders. Weld could still remember the manner in which Armstrong had delivered them.

“The Wards’ job is to stay out of this,” the man ordered. His soft face and graying hair made him almost look like the grandfather Weld never had, but there was steel in the man’s voice. The humor of that wasn’t lost on Weld; it was a factor in how the man had earned Weld’s respect. The director went on, “Bakuda is so far out of your league that we’ll need to restructure our classification of _leagues_.”

“Sir, I understand that you don’t want to endanger us,” Weld started, hesitant. He wasn’t the type to disobey orders, but arguing on his team’s behalf was far from disobedience. If anything, Director Armstrong encouraged it. Another reason why Weld admired the man. “Surely there’s something we can do to help, though? Maybe we could shoulder some of the Protectorate’s burden as they deal with this.”

“Aw, man, I wanted to fight the bomb girl,” Slant grumbled. She was silenced by a sharp look from her team leader.

“Actually, there is something you can help with. Damage control. Your team has got the respect of the civilians, and we can work with that.”

Weld remembered the pensive look that had crossed his superior’s face. His fingers were steepled in front of him. He looked for all the world like a general, calling his troops to action. 

“Be ready to evacuate any sector of the city at a moment’s notice. You’ve got Virtu to coordinate, and Slant can manage the fieldwork. She’s good with the crowds.”

Slant had reacted to that, though Weld couldn’t remember the look that she’d shot at Armstrong. There had been other things on his mind. 

Weld had just nodded. “Thank you, sir.”

“That’s not all. I need your team on standby in the event that Accord reacts badly to this whole ordeal. And someone will need to keep an eye on Blasto; two powerful and otherwise unaffiliated tinkers in one city are something to be wary of. I’m not sure what they could do together, but I don’t want to risk it.”

_“We won’t let you down, sir.”_

Weld hung his head. Droplets of molten metal sprayed into his bristly hair, connecting and disconnecting from his power at random. Bakuda had targeted him, and she had well and truly countered him. Weld wasn’t sure how she was so familiar with his power, but it was clear that he had been specifically targeted. The chamber, the metal generator, the vents…he’d never felt so powerless.

Sure, he’d been in bad positions before. Weld’s first memory was of waking up in a junkyard. There had been a quarter ton of scrap metal hanging off his body, like an enormous zit that was almost as big as him. That first time, the impurities had been painful to purge from his body. The situation wasn’t too dissimilar from where he was now. There was a key difference, though.

That first time, he’d felt scared, confused, impure. Now, Weld felt _less_. It was more than physical, though he could feel the gaping wounds in his torso, not to mention his lack of limbs and most motor function.

No, this feeling of being _less_ was an emotional one, and that scared Weld even more. He’d gotten so used to being in a team of heroes, of having friends and mentors and backup. Being here, alone, suspended in a tank with no chance to use his powers and a bomb above his head? The depth of his failure was palpable. 

But that couldn’t be it. Weld was a hero. He didn’t get cowed by some life or death situation. This feeling, the insecurity, it had started earlier. Before being captured, before the debriefing, before midnight, even. 

Dinnertime, a few days ago. He’d been with Slant.

She had been out of costume, at least mostly. Her sweeping scarves and sharp-edged armor were replaced with worried jeans and a cropped t-shirt. The boots stayed on, of course.

Weld liked that about her, the ease with which she straddled the line between heroine and human. Most of the team came to the base and masked up in the locker room. When they interacted with Weld, they weren’t “Richie” or “Erica”; they were “Virtu” and “Bell Curve”. Wards. 

They had their good times, but it was all...boxed in. There was a gap between their cape personas and their real selves that Weld couldn’t bridge.

Slant, though, was never just one or the other. She was overflowing with personality, too much life in her to fit behind one face or another so easily.

Sometimes, Gigi spoke a mile a minute, words blurring together at super speed, she was so eager to share everything that she was feeling and seeing and doing in the world.

Other times, Weld walked into the base to find Slant curled up on the team’s couch, heart crushed by yet another wife beater or abusive parent that she’d brought in.

Even now, Weld could call back to the subtleties that made up each part of her.

The cute, down-to-earth girl who could make someone’s day with a few words of kindness had the same laugh as the indomitable heroine who could kick his ass around in the training ring. They had the same swagger, at least when Gigi was feeling confident, but defaulted into very different postures when stressed. 

They had different smiles though.

It had been that blend of features that had caused Weld to first catch interest in Gigi. He had been an idiot the first time, approaching her while they were out on patrol together.

Gigi had paused in her brisk stride, looking like a deer in headlights for a few moments, before resuming at a faster pace. Not even acknowledging him.

Weld could still remember the phantom burn in his ears as the Ward on comms coughed awkwardly and pointed them in the direction of a nearby mugging, or vandalism, or something. That part blurred into a jumble of half-remembered nonsense.

The image of Gigi’s figure shrinking as she ran down the dark road and the sharp pang that had hit his chest like a wrecking ball, those things stayed.

Weld had mustered up the courage to approach her again several weeks later. Her response was much more graceful that time around. A few shy glances and shuffling feet later, and her lips had pressed against his.

He remembered the kiss like it was yesterday, how it seemed like her lips were moving to the beat that his heart used to pound. Most of all, he remembered how he hadn’t _felt_ anything, not physically. The motion of her body, yes. Her weight in his arms, of course. But nothing else.

Why was that, when he could feel the pain of rejection so sharply?

The burn of the molten metal on his shoulders brought Weld back to the present. He had to focus on the situation at hand.

Bakuda probably wasn’t lying when she said she could vaporize him. There was a reason she hadn’t. If she wanted information, she could have decapitated him and saved his head only, but she hadn’t done that either. She’d fucked him up, sure, but she’d made sure he was at least partially intact.

If Bakuda wanted him to do her dirty work, she had another thing coming. Weld was loyal to the Protectorate, to the PRT, to his team. He’d been serving for years faithfully. He was a leader now. She could pry that monument to his hard work away from his cold, dead, metal hands.

But in the end, Weld had no idea what the villain wanted with him. He steeled his resolve as best he could. There was a long and painful wait ahead of him, and the night was still young.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been sitting on this project for maybe two years, but I think I'm finally ready to finish it. I have a few more things on the way, so stay tuned if you liked this.


	2. Live Wires

“I’m back!”

Bakuda’s voice echoed through the dingy apartment. Her normal, human voice, specifically. 

That was noteworthy, Weld thought. Aside from the one time when she’d snapped at him, Bakuda had kept her mask on for the past couple days.

Sometimes she worked in the same room as Weld, jotting down notes and occasionally looking him over before returning to her notes. Other times she disappeared into the other room. Weld had no idea what she did in there. Probably tinkering,

At first Weld thought Bakuda was addressing him, or maybe someone else in the dingy apartment. But then he noticed blinking red lights around the room dim at the sound of her voice.

She had a defense system. Of course she had a defense system. Weld didn’t want to think what horrifying fates a bomb tinker might inflict on intruders. He hoped his teammates wouldn’t find him as much as he hoped they did.

Bakuda stepped into his line of sight. Weld would have jumped in surprise if he could.

The Asian woman glowered back at him. Her hair had been pulled back into a bun but it was now in disarray. Mascara ran down her face like tears, highlighting a piercing blue glare. She was wrapped in some sort of duster that looked like it had been through hell.

In all honesty, she looked like she had been through hell.

There were two reasons for someone to look like that, in Weld’s experience. Either she had been in a fight, or she had gotten roaring, blackout drunk. Probably both, considering who she was.

“The fuck you looking at?” Bakuda hissed at him. Weld would have shrugged to piss her off, if he could. He settled for staring her down.

Bakuda didn’t seem bothered by that. She staggered over to her desk and pulled out the chair. She hesitated for a second, apparently weighing her options, before kicking the chair over and sprawling out on the floor instead.

Her ragged white tanktop bore the logo of a New York hero that Weld recognized. Her jeans were the same style as Gigi’s.

“You know what’s fucked,” Bakuda said, interrupting Weld’s thoughts. She was staring up at the ceiling, gaze fixated on the fan above her. “I just drank _so much_ fucking booze—”

She burped, patted herself on the stomach as if to make sure it was still there, and continued. “—And I feel like shit. Isn’t that fucked?”

Weld didn’t respond.

“Hey, fuck you, buddy.” Bakuda picked up a pencil that had fallen to the floor and lobbed it at him. It bounced off the glass face his cell. She threw a balled up sandwich wrapper and missed. “Yeah, fuck you. You’re bringing down the mood. Fucking asshole.”

With what looked like a lot of effort, Bakuda hauled herself to her feet and staggered out of sight. Weld watched her go.

He’d never been one to get wasted, obviously. Even if alcohol could affect him, which was nothing more than a fever dream, he wasn’t interested in what it had to offer. He had a job that he enjoyed, he had friends who he had fun with. He had a trajectory in life, upward momentum. What was the point of it?

That’s not to say he was judgmental like that. Weld remembered when the team had their first big victory under his leadership.

Bell Curve had smuggled a bottle of tequila into the base, nicked from her older sister. Weld had watched as his teammates poured out their shots, giggling like kids in their excitement. Slant had caught his eye as she raised the glass to her lips and given him a sly wink. Weld raised a glass in reply. His team had all tipped back their drinks.

“It tastes fucking nasty,” Virtu had gagged out between coughing fits. Everyone burst out laughing, nodding in agreement or taking another sip.

Encouraged by the reaction, Weld had raised his own shot and knocked it back in a single go. Weld remembered the cheers and applause as his team watched.

He hadn’t tasted a thing.

The night progressed and the celebration got rowdier. Gigi pulled him away from the team, a smile dancing across her flushed face. Weld was confused at first, until he saw the look on her face.

“Come on, hero,” she said, voice oozing with secrets, temptations, a million other taboo things. “Let’s get away from these kids.”

He remembered the spark in her eyes as she knelt before him. Him, perched on the edge of her bed, and her, shaking with excitement.

His pants seemed to just come undone under her ministrations, until she held his cock in her hands. Eight inches long, hard as steel, gleaming in the low light of her room. 

“Well, well, well, that sure is something,” Gigi breathed. “Don’t you know we’re not supposed to be packing weapons of mass destruction, team leader?”

Weld’s hand stroked through her frizzy black hair shakily. He couldn’t think of something to say. It wasn’t really his, in the way it was to other men. He’d molded it, much the same way he’d molded the rest of his body, but that seemed like the wrong thing to say right now. Gigi just giggled at him.

“Don’t worry, Weld. Seeing as I have, hm, seniority here, I guess I’ll take point.”

She drew her tongue from the tip of his shaft all the down, then back up. She looked back up at him, a pout on her face.

“Not even a twitch? You sure are stoic all over, huh?” His hand tightened in her hair. Her tongue lolled around the head of his cock. “Now that’s a bit better. Let’s get this show on the road.”

She dove back in, as confident as Slant might dive into any fray. She had to open wide to accommodate his girth, her teeth almost scraping him. Then they did. It didn’t even sting, but Weld shivered in response.

Encouraged, Gigi pushed forward, almost choking herself on Weld’s dick. He imagined he could feel himself sliding all the way down her throat. In reality, he could only feel a slight pressure.

Gigi’s tongue lathed his shaft as she went down on him. When she found she couldn’t take all of him in her mouth, she used her hands.

Her hands were small, dainty Weld liked to think, but they gripped his cock with what should have been crushing force. She bobbed up and down his rod, caressing what she couldn’t suck with a deceptively strong grip.

Warm, wet, velvety soft, the blowjob was all those things, but Weld barely flinched.

Gigi noticed his lack of a response, she always did, and she took that as a challenge. Her pace increased, superhumanly fast, bringing her head back to almost plant a kiss on his head before plunging back down.

She moaned around him, and he felt the vibrations, but it didn’t feel _good_. It just felt.

Gigi pulled one of her hands from Weld’s shaft, bringing it down between her legs. Her hands snuck down the tight waistband of her sweatpants and she _moaned_ , for real this time. He could see her fingers jerking through the thin fabric, see the wet spot spreading out like ripples in a pond.

She looked really good. She sounded really good. But she didn’t feel like much at all.

Gigi’s hand sped up. She sucked harder, a veritable vacuum on his dick that Weld imagined would send any other man to heaven in moments. Spit was lathered over nearly every inch of his shaft, some finding its way to Gigi’s face as she fucked her face on him.

She was gasping and moaning with every breath she got, face twisted in sheer pleasure. Her eyes looked up at him pleadingly. 

Weld didn’t know what to say. Words came to him anyway. “Come for me. Come harder than you ever have before.”

She did. Weld watched as she came undone before him, her knees shaking hard enough to fray the carpet. Her head fell back, and she let out a keen of pleasure, uninhibited by his steely member.

Then she slumped into him, gasping for breath, resting her face against his undisturbed erection.

The two of them had wiled the rest of the night away, curled up in her bed. That was the part that Weld enjoyed, the part where he felt something. Even if…

“So, um, can you come?” Gigi had asked. She grinded her ass into his crotch meaningfully before looking over her shoulder at him. “Like, have you tried? Or has it happened before at all?”

“I don’t know,” Weld lied. He added, hastily, “It’s never...I’ve never come since I can remember, at least.”

“Mm,” she said. Her voice was bleary with sleep and far too many drinks. “I bet I’m the first one to ask something like that, huh?”

“No, actually,” he said. “I’ve been asked by fans more than a few times. People want to know the weirdest things, you know.”

“Oh.” She pressed her arm into his, forcing him to clutch her tighter to his chest. “Duh. Of course.”

“We can try again, if you want,” Weld offered.

Gigi elbowed him. “Duh. Of course. Don’t think I’m letting you get off that easy. Or...not get off, I guess. I could try with my power next time. We can try a lot of stuff. We’ve got time, right?”

“Right,” he said. “All the time in the world.”

She was quiet for a while, except for the sound of her soft breaths and the patter of her heartbeat. Weld was simply quiet.

“What’s something you’ve never told anyone, then?” Gigi asked. She planted a kiss on his hand. “Something about yourself that no one else knows? Just for me?”

Weld had tried to think of something, he really had. He remembered his first memories of waking up in the scrapyard. The PRT had been there to document the whole thing.

He remembered the arduous process of joining the Wards, helped along by Armstrong and Chambers every step of the way. He remembered his time with the Boston team, the good and the bad. The good outweighed the bad by a lot, because he had his fellow Wards.

“I don’t know,” Weld replied honestly. Gigi didn’t have anything to say in response to that.

Weld hung his head, the greatest range of movement he had in the damned cage. Every once in a while, the liquid hot metal would configure in the right way and he could regain some control of his body. But it never lasted.

Not for the first time, Weld longed for the release that sleep could provide. He knew based on his interactions with Virtu that someone could sleep for at least fourteen hours a day. Sometimes more.

Weld could maybe drift off for half an hour, but it wasn’t true sleep. He’d read up on it. It was more like the dreamy state someone might fall into before sleep. It would be generous to even call it half-asleep.

It made sense, though. Weld wasn’t even half alive. He didn’t operate like a person, without a need for food or drink or even air. His heart didn’t beat inside his chest unless he forced it to. For god’s sakes, he was hanging inside a glorified pot of boiling steel with half his body stripped away and he could metacognate as well as ever.

He knew all this. It still hurt to remember. It still hurt to have no escape from the pressure. Instead, he’d hung here wide awake for three days.

Bakuda stumbled out of her bedroom, looking even worse than she had last night. Weld’s gaze snapped to her, eager for any sort of distraction from his own thoughts.

She’d lost her coat and her pants at some point, leaving her clad in only her tank and a pair of black panties, but at least she’d lost the runny makeup too.

She winced when the sun from the window hit her but recovered quickly. The young woman stretched, her top riding up enough to show off a toned belly, before she made her way to the sink to pour herself a glass of water.

She chugged it down greedily, rivulets of water pouring down her throat and staining her shirt. Weld averted his eyes, suddenly uncomfortable at ogling a stranger. Especially a stranger with a record like hers. Still, he wasn’t above needling her.

“Fun night?” Weld asked, loudly enough to make her jump.

Without missing a beat, she threw the half-empty cup of water at him. The glass shattered on the floor in front of his cage.

“Fuck off!” she snarled. She stormed back into her room and slammed the door behind her.

Weld suspected she wouldn’t be out for hours at least. Today was looking like another long, boring day.


	3. Laying Pipes

“Not. A. Word,” Bakuda growled in her tinny supervillain voice.

She carried three gallon Ziploc bags in one gloved hand and what appeared to be a grenade launcher in the other. The rest of her costume was splattered in gore. Her red goggles were flecked with a darker red, and her bodysuit was crusted in that same red, as well as a palette of other streaks.

The grenade launcher was deposited on her kitchen counter with a clunk. Bakuda dropped the bags on the desk next to Weld.

“What the  _ fuck _ did you do?” Weld asked, when he finally got over his shock.

His mind raced through a million gruesome possibilities. Bakuda wasn’t the type to mow through civilians, was she? He didn’t think so. Which meant she probably fought other capes.

Was it the Protectorate? Had more of his Wards gotten caught in the crossfire? What if she had gone after civilians? It wasn’t hard to provoke her into a rage, as Weld had learned after a few hours with her.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist,” she answered, doing nothing to assuage Weld’s fears. She punctuated the statement by hiking up her bomb-laden belt. The motion only elicited a wince of discomfort. “Fuck, I got to go. Blasto is one  _ motherfucker _ , I can tell you that. Who would’ve thought a pussy like him…”

She trailed off as she disappeared into her bedroom. Her bloody leggings and shirt were hurled out of the open doorway a few minutes later.

Weld sighed in relief. Blasto wasn’t a bad guy, but he was a better target than any of the heroes. He never participated in fights himself, preferring to send monsters and mutants to do his bidding. If he did die in a conflict with Bakuda...Weld frowned. Blasto was a criminal, but he was a human being. He didn’t deserve that.

Weld and Gigi had argued that point too many times. The last argument was more memorable than most, considering it was the only time they had truly fought. Gigi had started the argument by hurling a table across the Wards’ common room. Things had only escalated from there.

_ “I’m going to fucking kill him!” _

The table crashed against the wall with enough force to split it in half. Gigi stomped over to the couch and kicked it with her boot. On the first try, her foot rebounded off a cushion. With the next blow, it was sent skidding across the floor.

Weld, just entering the room, caught the sofa before it could hit the wall. He pushed it out of his way, more so Gigi could see the disapproval writ across his metal body than because it posed any obstacle to him.

Without any other furniture nearby to vent her frustrations on, Gigi turned on Weld.

“Not a word,” she snarled at him. “You don’t get to say a fucking word! Because he got away, and you didn’t do a  _ fucking thing! _ ”

“Gigi,” Weld said. “We can’t interrupt due process. If the judge saw fit to let him walk—”

“Fuck the judge!” Gigi spat. “Fuck the process. Fuck all of that. That same process got the poor girl into his filthy hands in the first place!”

“I know this was important to you—”

“You don’t know  _ shit _ , Weld,” Gigi told him. “Okay? You don’t get to say that. You got Armstrong. You got the PRT. You got justice, don’t you get how rare that is? That girl, the poor fucking girl, she got the goddamn foster system. No one’s paying her a wage and a college fund and a fucking pension, okay?”

She hurled the belt from her costume to the floor.

“No one is holding her hand and patting her back. So shut the fuck up about what you know and don’t know. Maybe you weren’t born yesterday but it sure as hell wasn’t long ago, and  _ you don’t know shit _ .”

Weld kept his gaze fixed on Gigi. His voice was hard. “You’re upset. I get that. I know this whole case seems too close to home, but not everyone is like that, okay?”

“Fuck off, Weld!” Gigi crossed the room in two bounds, aiming to kick a hole through the comms console.

Weld caught her by the wrist, swinging her around into his chest so her momentum hit him full force instead. He grabbed her other wrist and pinned her there. It only took half a second for her to recover from the shock. Then she nailed him in the gut with her elbow, full force. Her arm bounced off with a clang.

“Gigi, let it go,” Weld growled in her ear.

“No,  **_you let go!_ ** ” Her power charged through her voice.

Before Weld could even think it through, he complied, pushing her away from him to land on her knees. He didn’t feel any pain, but he did feel strangely empty in that moment.

Gigi was back on her feet in a heartbeat. “Stop fucking with me, Weld. Stop bossing me the fuck around. You can’t be the leader and the lovestruck idiot, so just fucking  **_stop!_ ** ”

Weld floundered, and Gigi dashed toward him. She rammed him with her shoulder, but he weighed over six hundred pounds. For all her strength, she barely ranked as a Brute like him. He slid back an inch, maybe, before stopping.

But she was fast too. Weld hadn’t even seen her grab the extension cord, but he saw it as it flew around him like a lasso. The metal plug fused to the side of his neck. Then Gigi dashed in the opposite direction. Weld wasn’t a physics buff, but he was pretty sure that if Gigi couldn’t even push him, she probably couldn’t pull him. 

In this case, he underestimated just exactly how her powers worked. “Scaling momentum” was what the PRT file said, but that did not do them justice. It wasn’t just the combined strength and speed of an A-List cape hauling on him; it felt like gravity was working against him too, pulling him to his knees.

Then Gigi was coming at him again. Her first blow almost dented his torso. Her second was a roundhouse kick to the face.

The metal tip of her boot caught on Weld’s cheekbone, and it was all over. Gigi’s only choices were to dangle helplessly from his face or to embrace him and make her way down.

She chose the latter. Any other Ward might have a hard time clambering up and back down Weld’s six foot figure, but not Gigi. Weld wrapped his arms around her as she pried her boot free, preventing her from falling. 

Before he knew it, their foreheads were touching, and her hot breaths were flushing his cheeks with condensation. Her legs wrapped around his waist like they belonged there.

They did, to an extent. He’d molded his body to hers on more than one occasion.

“Gigi,” Weld began, breaking the heavy silence between them.

“Shut the fuck up, Weld,” Gigi breathed, and then she was kissing him. 

Gigi’s mouth sealed over his own. Weld’s tongue brushed against her lips once, twice, and then he was probing the inside of her mouth. Gigi squealed with delight. She loved that. She’d claimed that his cold and ever so flexible tongue was the closest they could get to tentacle play. 

Her hand clapped over the rigid outline of his dick. Weld grunted, but it was out of surprise rather than pain. Gigi’s fingers moved a mile a minute, strumming over his tented crotch like a rock star.

He dug his hands into her ass in return. It was firm, testament to years of hard exercise, but it still jiggled tantalizingly. His metal fingers flexed, then stretched, extending just a bit so he could take her whole ass in his hands.

Gigi groaned, pulling away from the kiss. “Fuck me, Weld. I need it now, please.”

“We’re in the common room,” he told her, scandalized. “Anyone could walk in. Anyone could  _ look _ in with barely any warning.”

“I’m fast,” Gigi purred. “Where’s your sense of adventure, hunk? I knew you’ve got one somewhere…”

Her fingers trailed up the length of his cock, straining against pants that were supposed to be baggy. He shivered, not from her touch, but from her voice. It was dripping with desire.

Weld spun around and tossed her on the displaced couch. Gigi let out a squeak before Weld pressed his mouth against hers. His fingertips narrowed, jabbed into the front of her shirt like scalpels, and then pried it open with a tear of fabric.

“Weld!”

“Like you said, we do it fast,” he said. He smirked down at her. “Besides, we’re right by the door, thanks to you.”

“You bastard,” she hissed.

Weld caught her nipples between his fingers, pinching and caressing them until they stood on end. She moaned, voice rising in volume as he touched her.

“You  _ bastard _ . Come on and fuck me already.”

Weld savaged her shirt, leaving the shreds to hang from the tight waistband of her leggings. He gazed at her perfect breasts. They were perky, her light brown skin flushed red with lust.

His eyes trailed up, taking in her slender neck, delicate chin, pouty lips, dizzy eyes. Her hair was always a bit wild, but it was a total fucking  _ mess  _ right now. Weld liked that.

He kissed his way down her heaving breasts, past her smooth belly and her waspish waist, over the dewy landing strip of her mound. He stopped at her clit.

“Please, Weld, please,” Gigi begged. “Fucking do it to me.”

Weld rose from his position at her dripping pussy. He towered over her, and when he released his cock from the confines of his pants, it seemed that much bigger.

The shaft was like burnished steel, its smoothness broken by criss-crossing veins. As Gigi watched, the veins became even more defined, to the point of exaggeration. Even he was done, his cock looked more like a dildo than a penis, eight perfect inches of promise.

Gigi almost went cross-eyed when she saw it.

“God, you’re so fucking sexy,” she cooed. She sat up to take him in her hands, but Weld pushed her back down. Gigi only giggled at the rough play. “What’s the hold up, captain?”

“Stay,” he growled. Then, “good girl.”

He moved slowly, as if they hadn’t done this a hundred times already, rubbing his cock along her folds. Gigi mewled with pleasure. Weld had pressed his head against her hot, needy entrance, slowly pushing his way in…

“Well aren’t you quite the fucking hero,” Bakuda interrupted.

Weld shot her a glare. She looked over at him innocently, blue eyes peering over the large lenses of her reading glasses.

“What’s the matter? Credit where it’s due, right? And man, you’ve got the whole package. Don’t eat, don’t sleep. Biological and chemical agents don’t seem to work on you…”

Bakuda held up a half-empty spray bottle and gave it a little shake. Weld blinked. Where had that come from?

“I would kill for some of the shit on your profile,” Bakuda told him. She jabbed a finger at her notes. “And what do you do? You spend all your time running the Protectorate’s errands. Yes sir, no sir. For fuck’s sake.”

“And you think that’s a waste of time?” Weld asked, bitterness creeping into his voice.

Bakuda tossed her notebook across the desk. “I think it’s fucking lame, Painless Steel. I think you’re a goddamn idiot for doing it. And yeah, I guess I’d have to say that it’s a waste of fucking time too.”

“And you?” Weld shot back. “You beat me, seemingly without trying. You’ve evaded the Protectorate for days after capturing one of their own. You beat Blasto, apparently, maybe even killed him. Clearly, you’re good at this. And yet all of this effort, all these resources, all this time and energy...for what? Who does it help? What’s the benefit? What’s the  _ point? _ ”

“First of all, for exactly what you just said,” Bakuda replied. She shot to her feet, tipping her chair over in her haste. “You think I’m good? I’m the goddamn best. I’m so much better than the best they’ll have to make new words to describe me.”

She paced, growing angrier as she spoke.

“But I’m also a fucking dropout nobody in one of the most populous cape cities in the world. The only people who seem to  _ get it  _ are me and maybe you. So all this effort, all this bullshit—” she gave Weld’s cage a kick, “—the cell and the bombs and the fights? I’d do it to every single person in this city to get the respect I deserve. Until all of them look me in the eyes like you and admit that, yeah, I’m just that fucking good.”

“And the people? They don’t matter to you, aside from existing as another voice to praise you?” Weld said.

Bakuda sneered. “Who gives a fuck about people? I’m a goddamn nuclear warhead. I was raised from birth to be a weapon, capiche? Maybe not to kill or to fight, but to take down and strategically eliminate anyone who got in my way.”

She jabbed a finger at the wall to Weld’s right. He had studied it a bit yesterday. Trophies, plaques, awards for all kinds of academic excellence. He’d assumed it belonged to whatever poor saps lived here before Bakuda waltzed in.

“I’m smart,” Bakuda said, her voice steely. “I work hard. I bust my fucking ass. If the people don’t get that, then they’re just in the way.”

Weld shook his head. “And that’s that? That’s all there is to it? Just a bloody road to personal glory?”

“No,” Bakuda replied smugly. She reached into her desk and raised a small plastic baggie. “Second of all, I scored a metric fuckton of weed from the mother of all treehuggers.”

She propped her chair back up, seated herself, and resumed her frenzied tinkering.


	4. Brick and Mortar

Weld winced as another strangled gagging fit resounded from the apartment’s sole bathroom. She’d been like that all afternoon, making trips between her desk and the toilet. When she emerged, she looked worse than ever: bloodshot eyes, a pallid complexion, sunken cheeks. 

He tried to force himself to muster up some sympathy, but it was hard. 

For her part, Bakuda just glared at him and stomped over to her desk. She resumed scribbling notes at a dizzying pace. Weld opened his mouth to ask what she was doing.

“I’m fine, you fucking human-shaped I-beam,” she snarled. She tore up the paper she’d been writing on and turned to face him.

“I didn’t say anything,” Weld said.

“I can feel your beady little eyes on me, Tin Man,” snapped Bakuda. “You’re not exactly subtle about watching. Don’t think I miss your little peepers on me after I take a shower either.”

“If you’re so concerned about it, why did you install a glass wall in my cell?” Weld asked reasonably.

“Fuck you! Just shut up and melt.”

She whirled around and swiped her notes off the desk, retreating into the privacy of her bedroom. Weld found himself alone with his thoughts again.

That was okay. Things were actually looking up.

For one thing, there seemed to be a malfunction in his containment unit. Maybe he was just getting used to it, but the molten metal that he was being fed was not quite as hot. He could almost shape it.

If Bakuda didn’t figure out what was up, he could regain enough control to escape. She’d be hard to fight, but she’d be unarmed if he waited for the right moment. Then, it would just be a slender young woman against his considerable metal bulk.

Or he could just run. But that stray thought was firmly relegated to plan B.

He had another advantage. Bakuda was slipping. She went to bed far later than she had before and staggered out no earlier than noon. Whenever she wasn’t tinkering, she was drinking or smoking or getting in fights.

But even her ventures out were growing infrequent. She could hardly go out to buy food or drinks without a siren lighting up the block. Weld could hear that from his prison here.

Pressure was building. He was recovering. This could all be over soon.

Right on schedule, Bakuda exited her room and made a beeline for the kitchen. She made a point of not looking at Weld, which felt surprisingly good.

Bakuda ripped the cap off a beer bottle, flicking it out of sight onto the floor. Her first draught was long enough to impress even Weld. She glared over the bottle at him.

“Are you jealous or something, Iron Lung? You ever even had a good drink before?” She sneered at him. “Maybe kerosene would make you feel something. I’ve got some, we could experiment.”

“I don’t have a stomach right now,” Weld informed her. “Ask again on a good day.”

She let out a guffaw. “You’re almost funny, you know. You got more spunk than I’d expect from a Ward.”

“No comment,” said Weld.

“How does a beastie like you make spunk, anyway?” she asked. “Do you just melt down some pocket change and go to town? Or is it more room temperature, like mercury?”

“Again, no comment.”

“Good ideas aren’t lightbulbs, Lugnut, you can’t just switch them off.” Bakuda drained the rest of her beer in one gulp. “See, I’ve been tinkering around, you might’ve noticed, and I’m getting damn close to shitting all over Manton’s theories.”

Weld kept his mouth shut. He had ideas where she was going with this, but none of them were good.

Bakuda grabbed another beer. “The sorts of things that make you such a million dollar man, the things that keep capes like Bell Curve from hurting themselves...I’m damn close to the key. And that’s when the fireworks happen.”

“What sort of fireworks?” Weld demanded.

“You’ll know it when you see it. Isn’t that the fun part?” She licked foam off her lips nonchalantly, like they were discussing the weather, or politics. “The whole point of bombs is the surprise of it all.”

“You’re threatening me and my teammates. Maybe more lives than that are on the line, I don’t know.” Weld stared at her through the thick pane of his cell. “I can’t allow you to do that. Not while I’m alive.”

“And are you? Alive, I mean?” Bakuda sipped her drink. “Do you breathe? Can you reproduce? Does your body maintain a constant and stable system? Do you even  _ move _ on the inside, Weld, or are you just an empty metal shell?”

He couldn’t think of a heroic-sounding response to that. Bakuda’s face turned almost sympathetic.

“Don’t sweat it, kid. All humans are like shells.” She winked at him. “Not the ones animals wear. The explosive kind. We’re just a melted mash of casing around a deadly, hair-trigger payload. Some of us just get lucky in what that payload is.”

“That’s a pretty nihilistic view of people,” Weld said.

“Is it? You must really hate fireworks then.” She shrugged and went back to nursing her beer.

“You’re not even that much older than I am. You got into Cornell at seventeen, right? What happened there that made you like this? Why are you so angry at the world?”

Bakuda took longer to answer this time, or maybe she was just enjoying her drink. “I don’t have to justify myself to a toy soldier.”

“At least I’m not reveling in people’s deaths,” Weld replied, feeling stung.

“So what do you revel in? What do you want out of this crapsack shithole of a world?” Bakuda asked. “And don’t say a girl or I’m gonna vomit. Again.”

He did his best to shrug. “I’m not sure yet.”

“Oh my god, there is a girl, isn’t there?” She pinched the bridge of her nose like she had a migraine coming on. “Fuck me, I need a cigarette or five.”

“Maybe there is.”

Bakuda held up a finger as she lit her cigarette one-handed. She sucked in a breath and let the smoke seep out through her lips slowly.

“Don’t you want something more than that, though, something for yourself? You know that girl isn’t yours, like really yours-yours, right Romeo?” She tapped her temple with her cigarette hand, taking a swig from her bottle in the other. “You need to think for yourself. Egos before hoes, buddy.”

“You’re saying I should think about myself first, above and beyond anyone else? Like you do?” he challenged.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying, you fucking nuthead.”

“Well that’s exactly what I’m against,” Weld said. “I’m a hero.”

“Maybe you should consider why you’re so driven to self-sacrifice,” answered Bakuda. “It’s almost sad, knowing you have no idea what you’re missing out on.”

“Maybe you should consider that you’re not a good person,” he shot back.”

“Do you think I wanted this?” she demanded. “Do you think I wanted to kick it like a fucking crackhead, run from the cops like my life depends on it every other day? Life doesn’t always work out peachy keen.”

“So, what, the world was unfair and now you hurt people?”

Bakuda yawned. “About sums it up, I guess. Call it a Chekhov’s gun no one saw coming.”

“That’s ridiculous. No one is that guiltless,” Weld told her. “Least of all someone who seems to enjoy being a villain as much as you.”

“Villain. That’s rich,” she scoffed. “I hate this cape bullshit.”

“You use your powers to break the law. If that’s not a villain, what is?”

“It must be so nice to be blessed with a wiped hard drive,” said Bakuda. She laughed. “You think I’m a villain? What would you say about the asshole parents who beat their kid every day like clockwork? The ones who can’t deal with the fact that they made something good out of this shit world, so they feel the need to taint it?”

Weld didn’t have a good response to that.

“Maybe you’d say that they’re the real villains. That when they break a finger because she got the second highest score, they’re doing a disservice to society. Or when they lock her in her room over a slipped swear word, they’re setting off a ticking time bomb.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Weld said. “Really, I am. And I can’t relate to your situation like that. Your parents hurt you, and--”

“Hurt? I wasn’t hurt,” Bakuda said with disgust. “Pain was the first thing they trained out of me. Goals and dreams were next, of course. You of all people should have an idea of what it’s like to lose all that.”

“I don’t remember losing it,” he replied. “But I know what it’s like without. It’s hard.”

“Try twelve years of it. Going through school like a robot, all yessir and no ma’am. Smiling, nodding, fuckin’ dazzling everyone on the outside, but on the inside...empty.”

Weld had lost count of what beer Bakuda was on.

“Time I got to Cornell, think I was about ready to be done with the whole thing. Either school, or my life. Lucky me I got to quit both.”

“They said you were failed by a professor,” Weld said quietly.

Bakuda didn’t get angry like he expected. She didn’t throw her beer or pull out a grenade or even start ranting like she often did. She just looked down at the drink in her hands. Her eyes were very blue, and very sad.

“They’re being nice. I bombed a test, that’s all.”

“Bakuda,” Weld began. He hesitated before continuing, “Maybe we could talk to the PRT together. We could work something out that makes everyone happy.”

“Don’t play games with me, Nickelback. If there’s one thing bombs can teach me about life, it’s cause and effect.” Bakuda made her way around the kitchenette counter to collapse into her chair. “My folks did things, and accidentally made me. I did things too, and now here we are. I can handle my own fallout.”

“My point is, you don’t have to. No one should.”

“What, you wanna a little quid pro quo action?” she said. “Something like, I do yours and you do mine?”

Bakuda stretched her arms above her head and arched her back in the chair, drawing Weld’s eyes to her lithe body. He wasn’t one for voyeurism, despite what she’d claimed, but he wasn’t blind either. Whether or not he could feel sensations, he still felt the need, the drive in the back of his head.

Her ratty t-shirt stretched up with her to reveal a tanned stomach. Where Gigi’s taut belly was built by hard work though, Bakuda was more like a hungry animal. Didn’t eat, sleep, or even fuck much, from what Weld saw of her. He could tell from the wiry muscle of her bare shoulders and the lines in her otherwise unblemished face. She was the type to fight over scraps.

She was looking at Weld like he was more of a meal, though. A meal she had all to herself. Her eyes were lidded, teeth showing in the cat-like smirk on her face. It took him a second to realize he hadn’t answered her.

He cleared his throat, so to speak. “You’ve made it pretty clear you’re not interested in engaging with heroes.”

Bakuda licked her lips. “Depends what we’re engaging in.”

Her face was flushed a light pink. Was she hitting on him? Or was it just the alcohol? Weld was pretty sure this sort of hero-villain soiree was frowned upon. It never even ended well in the comic books or movies.

“You don’t have to make fun,” he said. “I’m not trying to turn you, I’m only trying to help.”

When did she pull her chair so close? She kicked the glass pane of his cell lazily with a bare foot. With nowhere else to look, his eyes traveled up her legs, bronze as his metal bones and just as smooth. Her thumbs were tucked in the front of her pants, a pair of jeans cut so short it was criminal.

“You can help me,” she told him. Her fingers drew lazy circles on those long legs.

Weld wished he was normal. Not normal, but just human at least. He couldn’t remember if he used to fantasize about falling into situations like this, but it was pretty likely. A half-dressed girl, practically flashing her breasts at him, begging for attention. For any red-blooded guy, it was a dream.

But Weld’s blood was distinctly not red.

“That’s not in the cards, and I think we both know it,” Weld said firmly. “You’re just drunk.” And lonely, probably. He didn’t mention that aloud.

“And you’re no fun.” Bakuda pouted. “You should know, Metal Gear, that I don’t give up as easy as you. Consider this bomb armed.”

She gestured to her figure and winked at him for good measure. 

“Let me out of this thing and you might have a better shot at it,” Weld tried. “Until then, I’m about as useful to you as a trophy husband. Maybe less.”

“A trophy husband!” Bakuda cackled. “I should put you on my desk and polish you until you gleam, huh? A little spit shine and elbow grease, is that what you’re looking for? You crack me up.”

She teetered out of her chair and sauntered back to the bedroom. He watched her leave, eyes glued to her ass as tight as those shorts were. How had she put it? Quid pro quo? Weld smiled to himself.

“I’m going to go flick my bean like a dying woman,” Bakuda announced. She turned to point a finger at him before she disappeared through the door. “Seriously, think about what your manic pixie dream girl  _ really  _ does for you. And maybe what you could do for yourself.”

The smile dropped from Weld’s face. The door slammed behind Bakuda, more a force of habit than any indication of mood.

Another night, alone with his thoughts. He was beginning to think he’d never get used to this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm out of backlog and trying to finish this up, so forgive the errors and slower upload pace


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